Repositories provide a central place for recording metadata and enable one to store, manage, share and reuse information about data (i.e., metadata) that an enterprise uses. A repository can store definitional, management and operational information. Tools can be integrated with the repository to support information sharing and metadata reuse, and tool and technology models may be developed to manipulate the tool information in the repository. However, the transferring of data within models from tool to tool or from a tool to the repository has been a cumbersome and unyielding task for a long time.
Repository models typically contain classes, datatypes and messages. As more and more complex models are being built, the need arises for a method and system to transfer data in a model from place to place, e.g., to a tool that understands the UML ("Unified Modeling Language"). The present invention solves this problem by converting a model existing in the UML to a model in MOF ("Meta Object Facility"), which is used in may repositories today.
Accordingly, there is a need for an automatic method and system for converting from object models existing in the Uniform Modeling Language to models existing in the Meta Object Facility language. Moreover, since there are many characteristics in UML that have no equivalent in a MOF model, it is not possible to simply apply an automatic set of rules that generates a MOF model from any UML model. However, if a UML model is carefully crafted as a physical model, with the necessary information included, that model should be automatically convertible to a MOF model.